Thursday, January 30, 2014

Chainmaking

Boing Boing has a post with an animated GIF showing a machine making chain.

Google Street View on a Submarine

I have always like submarines and now Google Street View will let you take a tour of HMS Ocelot a submarine at the Chatham Historic Dockyard in the UK.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

How Common is your Birthday?

The Daily Viz has a post with a heat map showing how common a particular birthday is (at least among people born in the US between 1973 and 1999).  July, August and September seem popular with September 16 being the most common.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The Great Sahara Sea

According to this article on IO9, in the 19th century there were plans to dig a canal from the Mediterranean to flood the low lying areas of the Sahara desert and create a giant inland sea.
The London Times said that the plan "dazzles the imagination, yet it has a sufficiently substantial basis to satisfy several shrewd traders in African commerce and some distinguished engineers." The Daily News called the project "the most remarkable that has ever been devised."